ALIVE TV: BUI DOI: LIFE LIKE DUST (TV)
Summary
One in this series of arts programs featuring the work of leading avant-garde artists in video, music, dance, theater, and film. This black-and-white film is based on the life story of Ricky Phan, a young man currently serving time in the penitentiary. First-person narration is accompanied by dramatizations, interviews, and archival footage. The film begins in a prison yard, where Phan explains the meaning of Bui Doi, or having a "life like dust," where one is constantly drifting. He also describes his alliance with other Bui Doi in the U.S. who have assembled as a gang or surrogate family. Next are scenes of gang members engaged in activities at home and in the street, and one member recites a prose poem about becoming involved in the gangster life. Phan then examines his own life, beginning with his childhood in wartime Vietnam, followed by his family's immigration and the good and bad times during his gang membership. He reflects on the juncture when the once-glamorous gangster life turned sour, and compares this low point in his life to the poverty and fear he experienced in Vietnam. He concludes that his Bui Doi has stopped moving.
(Portions of this film are in Vietnamese with English subtitles.)
(Series title varies; as above, 1991 onward; as "Alive From Off Center," 1985-1991.)
Cataloging of this program was made possible by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, 1998.
Details
- NETWORK: PBS
- DATE: August 5, 1994
- RUNNING TIME: 0:27:18
- COLOR/B&W: Color
- CATALOG ID: T:40039
- GENRE: Docudrama
- SUBJECT HEADING: Gangs; Prisons and prisoners; U S - Emigration and immigration; Vietnam War
- SERIES RUN: PBS - TV series, 1985-1996
- COMMERCIALS: N/A
CREDITS
- For "Alive TV":
- Neil Sieling … Executive Producer
- Julia Gillett … Senior Producer
- Esther B. Robinson … Associate Producer
- Mark Pellington … Director, For opening sequence
- tomandandy … Theme Music by
- Stephen Kroninger … Animation, For opening sequence
- For "Bui Doi":
- Ahrin Mishan … Production (Misc.), A film by, Music by
- Nick Rothenberg … Production (Misc.), A film by
- Cameron Allan … Associate Producer
- Ricky Phan